The Conscience of a Progressive

by Steven Klees

This takes us to the central neoclassical economics story of the supposed efficiency of a competitive, capitalist, market system that goes back to the eighteenth century and Adam Smith, with little fundamental variation to today. Codified at the end of the nineteenth century in what was called the “neoclassical synthesis,” the belief that a market system is “efficient” rests on the behavior of an abstraction economists call “perfect competition.” Under perfect competition, firms maximize profits, consumers maximize their happiness (which economists call “utility” to make it sound more scientific), all units are small so no one can exercise any market power, no one is affected by the decisions of others, there are no barriers to any firm starting up in any business, and knowledge is free and perfect. There are no big corporations, no patents, no unions, no entities with market power. Under these (unreal) conditions, in this idealized world of perfect competition, it is argued that the economy will be efficient in a number of ways. All goods and services will be produced as cheaply as possible and, not only that, they will be sold to us at that price. Consumers will be “sovereign,” that is, the market will be directed by the money “votes” of consumers – what economists call demand. Neoclassical economists do explicitly acknowledge that the more money you have, the more votes you have to direct the market toward producing the goods and services you want. In sum, efficiency me...

He then calculated that if you just looked at this ratio for white males, it was only 7:1. While the racism and sexism of the labor market is implicit in this difference, Thurow’s main point is that a ratio of 7:1 seemed to be more than sufficient to give white males incentives to get ahead and, therefore, that greater inequality than that was clearly not needed for motivation.

Systemically, from a progressive perspective, the expansion of NGOs has contributed to maintaining poverty and inequality by contributing to the delegitimation of the State.

The fervor with partnerships has also stifled critique, debate, and alternatives. Perhaps the most notable education partnership of the past 2 decades, “Education for All” (EFA), has demonstrated this problem with partnership fervor. Prior to EFA, World Bank policies were constantly and openly challenged by major aid agencies. Since the formation of the global EFA partnership, this has visibly changed. Formerly vocal critics of the Bank and its policies, like the Canadian and Scandinavian aid agencies, UNICEF, and UNDP, may still offer criticisms, but much more softly and privately.

Recognizing that the MDGs were not fulfilled, the UN began a process to develop a set of successor goals, resulting in the SDGs. These were unanimously approved by the UN in 2015, apply to developed countries as well as developing countries, and are even more ambitious than the MDGs. The SDGs consist of 17 goals to be achieved by 2030 and focus on sustainable development overall, with the following specifics: no poverty; zero hunger; good health and well-being; quality education; gender equality; clean water and sanitation; affordable and clean energy; decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation, and infrastructure; reduced inequalities; sustainable cities and communities; responsible consumption and production; climate action; life below water; life on land; peace, justice, and strong institutions; and partnerships for the goals. Each of these goals also had targets, with 169 targets in total, each with a number of indicators to examine.

Big business is not just the future of development, it is the here and now. In an expose of the “corporate takeover of aid,” journalists Matt Kennard and Claire Provost point out:106